Fifteen years ago this week, audiences finally found out what Cloverfield was. After months of speculation, the found footage monster movie from producer J.J. Abrams, writer Drew Goddard, and director Matt Reeves roared into the box office and quickly became a fan favourite. Two tangentially related follow-ups came next, and now the director, who has since gone on to bigger things like the Planet of the Apes prequels and The Batman, has teased what might potentially come next.
“There’s no question it would be a viral movie, right?” Reeves said to Syfy when asked if a new Cloverfield follow-up could play into covid fears. “It would be about a virus. The funny thing about making that movie, like I said, for me, it opened up the idea of making genre movies and specifically about exploring your own feelings about things. I had such anxiety that was related to… I mean, I still have such anxiety. I think I wouldn’t be a filmmaker if I didn’t have anxiety.”
“Every movie that I’ve made is some sort of depiction of my internal anxiety,” Reeves continued. “I think today, it would absolutely come from the uncertainty of what you can’t see and the idea that being next to someone, you could catch something. There have been some really scary [viral thrillers]. Contagion is certainly really scary … There would be a scary [Cloverfield] movie to do for sure about the spread of the virus.”
In the same interview, Reeves teased — but refused to talk about — the Cloverfield franchise continuing because it’s been a while. Almost exactly five years have passed since the last film in the franchise, The Cloverfield Paradox, was surprise dropped on Netflix on a Super Bowl Sunday. That film laid the groundwork to link itself not just to the original movie, but arguably the best one of the bunch, 10 Cloverfield Lane, from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. In doing so, Paradox basically made it clear a Cloverfield movie could be anything, and it seems next time, it might have to do with a killer virus.
The same Syfy interview also has some interesting thoughts on the original Cloverfield monster itself, which Reeves confirms was an alien baby who dropped to Earth in the film’s climatic flashback and was looking for its mother. Head over there to check out the full interview. The new 4K anniversary edition of Cloverfield is now available.
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Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.